Aussiedistiller, Home Distilling, Moonshine, Home Brew

Hey guys,
Busy planing out my still,
The reason I'm using 4 inch 316 grade stainless is that I have enough to left over from my car exhaust to make a still,
My design which is attached, feel free to comment on it,

Will be run with a 3 ring cast iron burner, main reason is that I have 2 of them for making sinkers so will be using that,
We will be making the boiler from a stainless 2 mm sheet I have laying around enough to hold 90 l to the brim, obviously not running it that full

Cheers

Need copper in the vapor path somewhere mate, helps remove all the sulphides.

CaptainRedBeard wrote:Need copper in the vapor path somewhere mate, helps remove all the sulphides.

My hand writing is bad, but it is written in the shotgun "4inch copper shot gun" and everything after the shot gun is copper, parrot included

+1 to what Captain said, but to elaborate copper in the UPWARD vapour path to remove sulphides. Pretty sure you'll need a vent at the reducer with such a long tube to the parrot, something about vapour lock and surging I believe. Apart from that looks great :handgestures-thumbupleft:

Don't forget the fill port and drain in the boiler :teasing-tease:

Any of you have much luck with brazing stainless steel ferrules to 4 inch copper?
Will I need to solder the stainless to copper first as it requires more heat and then solder the insides of the shot gun?

I wouldn't take on that unless you have had alot of practise with ss to copper. You will be better off just putting an easy flange on the copper 4inch :handgestures-thumbupleft:

rumdidlydum wrote:Don't forget the fill port and drain in the boiler :teasing-tease:

On the list... forgot to draw,

So copper for the entire shot gun and everything after won't remove sulphides?
Only as Vapour?

Yeah you need copper in the uphill/vapour path.

A roll of copper mesh in the column will do the trick if you are set on using SS :handgestures-thumbupleft:

Interesting as I went and had a chat to Mac at 5 stars and he said the copper in the shot gun will be plenty
But it's easy to add copper mesh in to the vapour path if I need it, some drooling went on at his shop today :) decided on getting bubbler parts soo after I have got my pot still skills up to scratch

Any other design issues?
Picked up my 4 inch copper today and reducers etc :)

Planning ahead for modular is an excellent move. The versatility of what you can do by building modular will have you neck deep in both builds and booze!

Only suggestion now would be to have a 1" tri clamp between your PC and parrot stem, and to add a breather tube on your stem also.

Why tri-clamp it? Because if and when you build additional modules (bubble Plates, RC, packed sections etc) the height of your column will boom. So, by having your parrot modular, you can just add an extension between your PC and parrot to bring it all back to your collection height.

What booze you going to make? any neutral or vodka? if so i recommend making the RC so your ready for plate sections and the column can be packed easily

WTDist wrote:What booze you going to make? any neutral or vodka? if so i recommend making the RC so your ready for plate sections and the column can be packed easily

Only rum and move on to Whisky... No neutral or vodka, never drink it
Will look at making the parts after the pc more modular

Thought I would practise with copper and hard soldering made a parrot
And cut up all the tubes for the shotgun

Most of the pieces for the shot gun

We have a big fab and tigging arvo today :)
Watch this space :)
Got an old 316 grade hot water system tank we are turning into the boiler and a modular pot head :)
Some pics of the PC I've built for it

Had to get reasonably good at soft soldering quickly haha

Very nice work mate.

Just thought it worth mentioning that to be sure you are using lead free solder. I didn't see it mentioned in the thread is all.

Looking good! :music-deathmetal:

What grade SS is the exhaust pipe ?

Doh! just re read SS316 carry on as you were 8-}

Yep 100% lead free solder, and yea all 316 grade parts apart from what is copper :)
I did a lot of reading and still am,
Will probably post up Pics tomoro some time

Also grabbing a couple 190l fermenters this arvo, with aquarium heaters on their way
Votes to how big the boiler should be? Total internal volume
80l
100l
120l

100l is what I had in my head, lets me do about 60l at a time of wash for stripping which would be 3 stripping runs out of 180l in the fermenter